John Soboslai is an assistant professor, arriving at Montclair State in 2016. He has a degree in philosophy from Central Connecticut State University, a M.A. in religion from Columbia University, and earned his PhD from University of California, Santa Barbara under the supervision of Mark Juergensmeyer. He has published and presented in various forums, and was named Emerging Scholar of 2016 by the University of North Carolina. At MSU he teaches courses in religious violence, global religious politics and death, dying and the afterlife.
關鍵詞
Self-Immolation; Tibetan Buddhism; Violence and Nonviolence; Power; Transgression
摘要
The paper investigates the conceptual dichotomy of violence and nonviolence in reference to the self-immolations that have been taking place in Tibet for the last several years. First using the insights of Hannah Arendt to distinguish between the categories of violent, nonviolent and peaceful, I approach the question of violence as the problem of acts that transgress prohibitions against causing harm. Using that heuristic, I examine the ways multiple ethical systems are vying for recognition regarding the selfimmolations, and how a certain Buddhist ambivalence around extreme acts of devotion complicate any easy designations of the act as ‘violent’ or ‘nonviolent’. I conclude by suggesting how any such classification inculcates us into questions of power and assertions of appropriate authority.
目次
Abstract 146 Keywords 146 Tibetan Self-Immolations 148 The Stance of the People's Republic of China 149 Tibetan Religio-Nationalism 151 Sanctioned Violence in Tibetan Buddhism 152 Self-Immolation as Nonviolent 153 Self-Immolation as Religious Practice 155 Motivation 156 Conclusion 157 References 159
